revisiting english as the academic lingua franca: does it devour other languages

Since the middle of the twentieth century, changes in business, science, and technology have led to the development of english as the world lingua franca. this has encouraged many people around the world to learn english as an additional language. an important question to ask is what role english plays in the globalized world. does it expand more and more at the cost of the marginalization of other languages? do other languages affect english? do people take positive or negative attitudes relative to english as an additional language? along the same line, the status of english in the academic world has presented it as the sole academic lingua franca. english as the academic lingua franca (ealf) might be regarded as a privilege to researchers and academics. it increases readership, enhances research/researcher visibility, facilitates communication in written and spoken interactions, and promotes the internationalization of researchers. to others, ealf might be interpreted as a disadvantage as it restricts the scope of the activity of other languages in academic settings. persian is a substantive example of a language with restricted competence in academic contexts. among the possible reasons for this restriction, one can refer to the reluctance of persian academics to publish in local persian-medium journals. this brief talk aims to reflect on the impact of english as an academic lingua franca—an extension of world englishes-- on the academic world and the positive/negative ideologies surrounding it.